Pressure Washing in Aurora: The Water Is Not Denver Water
Aurora Water is a city-owned utility with no connection to Denver Water. It draws from three river basins, the Arkansas, the Colorado and the South Platte, carries that water as far as 150 miles and finishes it at three separate treatment plants.
That shows up on your windows. Hardness averages 136 ppm as calcium carbonate, about 8 grains a gallon, and the measured range across the city is 87 to 198 ppm, from Aurora's own 2026 water quality report. Nearly a two times spread inside one city limit.
Aurora Water also had the city under Stage 1 drought restrictions when this page was written. Stages change, so confirm the current one on auroragov.org before you book anything using outdoor water.
The Hose Bib They Fill From Changes the Whole Job
A crew that topped up its tank in Denver at nine in the morning is not running Aurora water on your driveway at two in the afternoon. Different source, different plants, different mineral load.
Aurora water is alkaline and mineral heavy: pH 8.1, total dissolved solids at 240 ppm, calcium at 44.9 ppm. Harmless to drink. It means every gallon put on your house arrives carrying a payload, and when the water flashes off the payload stays.
That is what the spots are. White specks on glass, on black gutters, on dark trim and on the car in the driveway are Aurora minerals, not dirt the crew missed. At 5,471 feet in very low humidity it dries too fast to wipe later.
So the rinse gets planned before anyone starts. Ask whether the crew carries filtered or deionized water for the final pass on glass, and if not, whether they will hand dry the windows they wet. A crew that shrugs at that has never watched Aurora water dry on a south facing window in July.
You can settle which end of the range you are on without buying anything. Fill a clear glass from your outside hose bib, set it on a dark plate out of the wind and leave it until the water is gone. The ring in the bottom is what will be sitting on your windows after a wash. Faint ring, and a rinse plan is a nicety. Heavy chalky ring, and the rinse plan is the job.
One correction to carry into a sales conversation. Water softener companies publish figures putting Aurora at 12.8 to 13.4 grains a gallon and call the city among the worst in Colorado. The city measured average is about 8 grains. A pitch built on the bigger number came off a sales page, not from Aurora Water.
Aurora disinfects with chloramine instead of free chlorine, at a measured 0.52 to 2.24 ppm. Mention it if a crew plans to mix product straight from your tap.
Aurora homeowner tip
Ask where the water is coming from before the truck arrives. Filling from your hose bib during a declared drought stage is your water and your bill. Hauling their own may be in the quote or billed after. Either answer is fine. Finding out on the invoice is not.
Aurora Drought Rules, and the Clay Under Your Foundation
Aurora Water has the city on Stage 1 drought restrictions, aiming at a 20 percent cut in outdoor use. Lawn irrigation is two days a week by address, nothing runs between 10 in the morning and 6 in the evening, new cool season turf is out and pools cannot be filled.
Now the honest part. Those rules cover irrigation, pools, water features and restaurant service. They say nothing about washing a house, a driveway or a patio. We will not tell you exterior washing is banned in Aurora and we will not tell you it is allowed, because the city has not said either in public.
Which makes this the most useful five minutes of the whole project. Pull up the watering times page on auroragov.org, confirm which stage is in force today, then call Aurora Water and ask one plain question: does the current stage apply to exterior house and hard surface washing. The utility outranks any contractor, and it outranks this page.
Then there is the ground. Aurora sits out on the High Plains on expansive shrink swell clay, the kind that takes on water and grows. The failure here is heaving, not settling, which is why the damage shows up as lifted driveways, cracked flatwork and split basement slabs. The Colorado Geological Survey puts regional losses from expansive soil above tornado, flood, earthquake and hurricane losses combined, and the trigger is concentrated water against the house.
A long dry stretch makes that worse. Contracted clay opens shrinkage cracks, so water put at the base of a wall does not sit and evaporate. It runs down those cracks and reaches the clay several feet down in minutes. A wand held low against the bottom course of siding delivers water exactly that way.
Walk your own perimeter before the crew shows up. Look at the joint where soil meets the foundation wall, and anywhere you can slip a finger or a pencil into a gap, drop a marker and point at it when they arrive. That is where wash water goes straight to the clay, and it takes ten seconds and no tools.
It is worth knowing what you are washing off. This is a semi arid climate at 5,471 feet getting roughly 15 to 18 inches of precipitation a year, across 163 square miles of dry open ground still building outward toward E-470 and the airport. What sits on your siding is wind blown prairie dust and grit, not the algae and mildew film that drives washing in humid states.
Which is a useful test of a quote. If one leads with mold and mildew remediation, ask them to walk you over and point at the growth. A shaded north wall sometimes has some. Often it is national template copy that arrived in Colorado unchanged, and dust comes off with less pressure, less chemical and less money than a mildew program implies.
Hardness runs 87 to 198 ppm across the city. A crew treating all Aurora water as one thing has not thought about your rinse.
Concentrated water at the foundation is what makes this clay heave. Volume near the base should be moving away from the house.
Your bib or their tank, and the fill either in the quote or not. Settle it before the truck parks.
Colorado does not license this trade and neither does Aurora, so that certificate is the only paper here that carries weight.
Pressure Washing Costs in Aurora CO
Typical Aurora ranges, here so you can sanity check a quote instead of replacing one. Height, square footage and how much glass and planting needs protecting move the number most. A crew hauling its own water sits near the top.
Common Questions About Pressure Washing in Aurora CO
How much does pressure washing cost in Aurora?
A single story house wash usually lands between $180 and $400 and a two story between $300 and $650. A driveway and front walk runs $150 to $350, a deck or fence $150 to $400.
Height, square footage, glass and planting to protect, and whether the crew hauls water or fills from your bib, are what move it. Ask which of those is driving your number and you learn fast whether the quote was measured or guessed.
Am I allowed to pressure wash during Aurora drought restrictions?
Nobody writing a web page can answer that honestly, us included. Aurora Water publishes rules covering lawn irrigation, pool filling, decorative water features and restaurant service. Hard surface washing is not addressed anywhere in them.
So make the call yourself. Check auroragov.org for the stage in force today, because stages change through the season, then ask Aurora Water whether that stage covers exterior house and hard surface washing. A contractor answering that without the call is guessing with your money.
Is there such a thing as a licensed pressure washing contractor in Aurora?
No. Colorado licenses electricians and plumbers at state level and says nothing about exterior washing. The City of Aurora issues its own contractor licenses for building, roofing, mechanical and remodeling among others, and pressure washing appears nowhere on that schedule.
Aurora licensed, for this work, is a phrase with no city document behind it. What is real is a certificate of insurance sent to you by the insurance agency. And if the same outfit also wants to sell you a roof while it is up there, Aurora publishes a public contractor lookup at coaapps.auroragov.org/OnlineContractorLookup/ where you can check that roofing license in two minutes.
Why does my glass spot after a wash?
Those are Aurora minerals drying on the surface, not dirt the crew left behind. City measured hardness averages 136 ppm as calcium carbonate, roughly 8 grains a gallon, ranging from 87 to 198 ppm depending on where in the city you are.
At this elevation the water is gone before anyone can wipe it, so the answer is a rinse plan agreed before the job: filtered water on the glass, or hand drying the windows that get wet.
Can washing my house really damage the foundation?
The washing does not. Water pooling at the wall does. Aurora sits on expansive clay that swells when it takes a concentrated soak, and heaving is what cracks slabs and driveways here.
After a dry spell that clay is cracked open, so water delivered at the base of a wall gets deep fast. A crew keeping volume off the bottom couple of feet and moving runoff away from the house is doing the Aurora version of the job. One blasting the base of the siding is not.
Do you do the washing yourselves?
No. Contractor Palace matches you with Aurora pressure washing crews and the pro you book does the work. There is no charge to you.
Need pressure washing in Aurora? Get matched free.
Tell us what needs washing and which part of Aurora you are in. We match you with a crew that keeps water off your foundation and has a rinse plan for the glass.
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